


The Deeds And Sufferings of Light

by TeddyRadiator



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24238252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeddyRadiator/pseuds/TeddyRadiator
Summary: For the HP_Silencio Fest. Summary: On the day the Golden Trio are captured and brought to Malfoy Manor, three individuals await their fate in the darkness of the Malfoy dungeon.Author Notes: Many, many thanks to Stgulik for the suggestions, asides, humour and support. There would not be a story here at all if not for this incredible person.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Deeds And Sufferings of Light

The dungeon walls look so very old. Moisture runs down their silent, granite faces. Perhaps it is merely the sweat of its occupants, wicked away to refresh the thirst of these selfish, parched walls. The silent inhabitants of this place know all about thirst. Silence is not their choice; they learned early on that speaking amongst themselves carries a swift and painful retribution.

The door above opens, creaking like a stuttered curse. Light spills down the steps, pooling onto the floor, staining all that it touches with dread. Once upon a time, light meant comfort and cheer. Now the prisoners all skitter away from it like cockroaches. They are conditioned to shun it and one another.

Time means nothing. They do not know how long they have been incarcerated. They do not know why one another is there. But they _do_ know one another, as much as any three individuals who cannot speak, cannot see, cannot hope are capable of knowing anyone. Isolation will make you sell your soul if it means you won’t have to go upward toward the light.

Heavy tread rings on the flagstones. Every step is a threat and a promise; the prisoners feel their bladders loosen, their bowels grow sodden. To their unbounded relief, it is the goblin who is roughly caught round the collar and dragged away. The door closes, leaving them in the blessed darkness again, and they slump back inside their private, inner havens.

* * *

Garrick Ollivander thinks he is too old for this type of adventure, and he wishes he could say the right words to convince them of his cooperation. He is so tired; for his punishment, young Bellatrix (walnut, twelve and three-quarters inches, dragon heartstring core) won’t allow him to sleep. His thin mattress has been charmed to detect any change in breathing or muscle tension, and the moment his eyes close it wakes him with the sensation of ants crawling all over his body. For a cup of hot tea and a warm bath and a full night’s sleep, he would give them every wand in his shop.

To keep himself sane, he closes his eyes and pictures his shop. He imagines the jingle of the ring of keys in his pocket, harmonising with the ring of the bell over the door. He can almost hear the sighing voices of newly-turned wands, lying in their little coffins of silk or velvet or burlap, the soft clap of a lid as it closes over his latest creation. He breathes in the remembered smells of dust and wood and feathers and sinews and linseed oil, and for a moment, he is at peace.

All his lovely wands, waiting in the dark, patient and innocent, just as he waits here in the Malfoy dungeon. All his life’s work, waiting for the right wizard to bring them to life, to give them the final spark they need to fulfil their noble purpose. He misses his wands, his little children. Like a parent, he has no control over how they are treated, or how they behave, when they leave the nest.

Or does he?

Even when they leave him, they are still his; miracles alchemised from bits of wood and animal and his own magical spendings. He remembers every wand he has ever fashioned, every piece of wood chosen, every life force encapsulated in every core. To Garrick, a wand is as sentient a being as the wizard who waves it around. That is why they are dormant in the hands of Muggles and Squibs and other unworthy beings; the wand has pride of its own.

 _The wand chooses the wizard._ That is his motto. But _he_ chooses the wood, the core, the shape and size, and imbues it with his own magic; does it then follow that he, Garrick Ollivander, has the power to shape and mold the wizard as well? He looks up at the ceiling, and thinks of the wands doing their masters’ bidding up in the light. Has his own magical signature in some way influenced their actions? He likes to think so, even though he is not exactly pleased with the results of this particular expenditure.

Some wizards, like his host Lucius Malfoy (elm, sixteen and five-eighths inches, dragon heartstring core) use their wands like whores, demanding them to do their bidding, playthings for their pleasure. They are often cruel, though they tend to be more protective of the instrument. They take better care of their wands, because they know they are only as strong, as complete as the wands they wield.

Wizards like young Draco Malfoy (hawthorn, ten inches, unicorn hair core) expect their wands to do all the work for them. These are the arrogant ones, the ones who struggle, who blame their wands for their shortcomings. They usually bring them back, denouncing them as defective. Garrick always apologises, takes the offending wand, gives it a polish and a quiet word of encouragement, lovingly places it in a new box, and presents it as a new wand. These lazy wizards usually then pronounce it perfect and go about their business. Magical folk are so childish about these things sometimes.

And then there are those, like young Luna Lovegood (maple, fifteen and three-quarters inches, unicorn hair), lying on a pallet six feet and eighteen-and-a-half inches to his left, who accept their wands with no more ceremony than picking up a dead-ordinary stick. Those are the safest ones, Garrick thinks. They never become abusive of their wands, nor enslaved by them. It is what it is: a conduit, a conductor’s baton synchronising the elements and nature in perfect harmony.

Yet they also rarely allow the wand, or themselves, to rise to their full potential, either. So much untapped power, unfulfilled.

The door opens again. The goblin is unceremoniously dumped down the stairs, and lands in the middle of the pool of light, which illuminates a heap of quivering, grunting, bleeding flesh, highlighted for their delectation. Garrick pretends he doesn’t see the creature crawl away into his own dark corner. They all edge away, hoping not to call attention to themselves, shrinking from the painful, beckoning light.

A hard hand yanks Garrick to his feet, and the coppery stench of blood and old carcass makes him want to retch. He stumbles up the stairs like a puppet on tangled strings, trying to stay on his feet. He lifts his face up toward the light, pretending it is sunshine, and for a moment, he is no longer afraid. He always goes willingly with his gaoler, hoping to appease his captors. He is more than happy to tell them what he knows.

The wand chooses the wizard. He once spoke those very words to the Boy Who Lived (but he doesn’t think about that now). He also recited those words to a young boy with hard, watchful eyes named Tom Riddle. Garrick thinks about _that_ a great deal. This Elder Wand that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is looking for; that is a true whore of a wand, and a trap. In the darkness, Garrick has pondered the Elder Wand quite a lot.

Garrick knows that he is a great wandmaker, perhaps the greatest ever to walk the earth, but even he cannot fathom the magic needed to create a wand of that power; not with human hands, in any case. It must have truly been created by Death himself. A wand like that, in the thrall of a wizard such as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named… that much power surging through that potent a conductor could crack the world in half like a rotten egg. The terror of that thought thrills Garrick. To witness a wand discharging such power must be a glorious, glorious thing.

He has tried to explain this, but his tormentors don’t want to hear his ramblings. They want him to talk about mundanities: what does the wand look like, where might it be, does he have it. Don’t they know that if he did indeed possess the Elder Wand, he himself would gladly put it in the hands of the most powerful wizard on earth, just to see it fulfill its holy destiny?

* * *

He drags himself out of the pool of light like a performer heckled from a stage, and lies in the cool, anonymous darkness of his little corner of the dungeon. He spits, grimacing at the taste of blood in his throat. He can smell his own stink, and it shames him. It is the harsh, metallic smell of hatred, and it radiates from him in powerful waves. They keep him too dehydrated to perform his own magic, and so the fetid odour of captivity clings to his clothing like sulphur.

“Griphook” is the closest thing to his name these Wizarding scum can pronounce. His true name, what he calls himself, is in Gobblidigook, a language too elegant for these thick-tongued humans. The old saying goes that a goblin has three faces: the one he is born with, the one he shows his family, and the one everyone else sees. Griphook has a fourth face that he only shows the feckless witches and wizards who bring their paltry riches to him for safekeeping. It is a face that only partially hides his fathomless contempt for them.

Since he was old enough to be dandled on his father’s knee, lisping his currency conversions and interest rates per annum, Griphook has known the goblin’s place in the Wizarding world. Take their money, kiss their arses and screw ‘em with interest. He has come by his hatred of Wizarding folk honestly.

He despises the Purebloods most of all: them with their faded airs and graces, sauntering into Gringotts like they own it. He wishes they were all dead, every witch and wizard who walks the earth. If he had his way, he would lock them all in their own vaults and let them rot. As it is, it looks as though they will all end up killing one another anyway. Griphook has heard whispers of a great battle to come, between this Dark Lord and his Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix. He wishes they would get on with it, so the whole flaming lot of them would die and leave goblins and their ilk alone.

He wants no part in the pointless skirmish going on in the light above. Ever since he was captured, he has been dragged from this pitiful excuse of a dungeon once a day, blinking and stumbling up to the sterile, bland light above. They think they can force him to reveal how to circumvent Gringotts’ famous security. He wants to spit in their faces; instead he tells them outrageous, transparent lies that do the spitting for him. His insolence is not well received. Defiance has never sat well with Wizarding folk, especially from goblins. They consider his kind less than second-class citizens—even lesser beings than house-elves.

This Dark Lord of theirs is of little consequence to Griphook. Powerful though Voldemort may be, he needs the goblin population—and their financial backing. The Wizarding folk speak of this war as one of blood and mud, pure and dross, high and common. This is a war like any other: it will be fought with Galleons, Sickles and Knuts. The Purebloods can sneer all they like, but Gringotts knows that their resources are indeed limited. Only a handful of his colleagues hold the keys to the most lucrative vaults.

And wizards have already killed three of them.

Griphook glances over to the wandmaker, Ollivander, and spits again. Sometimes he hates the wandmaker more than the rest put together. Wands will win the war: wands that have been forever denied to his race. The wandmaker hoards his talents and his powers only for Wizarding folk, and leaves other creatures to fend for themselves. Ollivander, more than anyone else, wants to keep his secrets sacred.

Nothing is sacred now.

In the dark, Griphook smiles. A day of reckoning is coming; not even Voldemort can stand against it. The greatest prophets have foretold a time when goblins will no longer be the servants of the wizard, and that time is nigh.

For the greatest goblin prophets are not scholars or religious leaders; they are bankers and financiers and mathematicians. One day, Wizarding folk will be ordered to call him by his proper name. It is fitting that Ollivander is down here with him, wallowing in the dark. Soon, they will all be banished to the darkness, and Griphook will be the one basking in the light.

* * *

The Goblin probably hates all Wizarding folk, but not, Luna suspects, as much as he hates himself for being caught by them. Goblins despise the taint of failure, her father once said. They never experience it enough to become immune to it.

Here in the dark, Luna frets. She isn’t afraid of what they do to her in the light. She can’t see the bruises, or the torn clothes, or the blood in the dark. Madam Lestrange and the others don’t understand that hurting her doesn’t really matter; she just disappears deep within, and hides from them until they get bored with her.

Luna is not a witch given to tears, even when Madam Lestrange is hurting her, but thinking about Da, alone and afraid in their comfortable, sunny house makes _her_ feel lonely. Her mother is little more than a memory now: long blonde hair, turquoise robes with little burns and tears at the sleeves, a smiling face, a great empty space left behind by her absence. Her father worked so hard to fill that space, to make the perfect home, and even here in the dark, Luna feels more fortunate than most that someone cares enough about her to miss her.

Da is a good man, but very sensitive. She knows they have hinted to him the things they will do to her if better information is not forthcoming. She just hopes he doesn’t do anything foolish; he has been known to protect his heart before considering his head.

She also worries about her friends on the run. Harry and Ron and Hermione are her dearest, closest friends. Luna has given a lot of thought to how she might best protect them. She knows that anything she tells those upstairs might end up hurting her friends. That would be as bad as hurting Da, and Luna doesn’t want that.

She patiently explained the story of the Deathly Hallows (although she received a back-handed slap for observing that all witches and wizards are told Beedle’s tales, and perhaps re-reading the story would jog their memory a bit), but they seem to be bored with her now. They bring her up to the light less and less as they learn more and more, so she waits patiently in the dark, reserving her strength and her magic. One day soon, she may need it to fight. She hopes she will have that chance.

She also wants to live, very much. At the very least, she doesn’t want someone to see their first Thestral on her account.

There is a commotion above their heads, and the door is flung open so hard it bangs against the opposite wall. Mister Ollivander is pushed down the stairs in fits and jerks. He utters soft grunts and gasps as he descends, like each step hurts him. The door slams shut before he reaches the bottom of the stairs, and instinctively Luna rushes forward to catch him before he falls the last few feet.

In the dark, he clings to her, an old man, trembling, whimpering, and she carefully guides him over to the lumpy pallet that serves as his bed. Luna knows she’ll be punished for helping him, but she doesn’t mind. Da has always said that you help people, even when they don’t want your help, because they usually deserve it most of all.

Mister Ollivander settles on his pallet and pats her shoulder clumsily. It is his thank you, and she accepts it as such. Human contact is its own magic, and they have just renewed one another’s.

There are strange noises upstairs; the light above is full of sounds. They are not pleasant. It reminds Luna of the awful night in the Department of Mysteries, surrounded by prophecies and Death Eaters and the musty smells of ozone and fear. Mister Ollivander frantically clutches her hand. There are bumps and thumps and cries for help, and the voices sound horribly, horribly familiar.

A scream rends the air above them, as if ripping the light wide open. Beside her, Mister Ollivander buries his head against her shoulder like a frightened child. Someone upstairs in the light is being tortured; someone new. In the un-light of the dungeon Luna sees the Goblin glance upward, a look of hateful glee on his face.

The door opens, and this time screams enter the dungeon along with the light, as if they are one and the same. It washes over them all, licking every dark corner of their world, flooding the dungeon. They all recoil from it, more afraid of the light than the screams.

Two figures are tossed down the stairs, tumbling over one another like drunken acrobats. They land in the bright, damning spot of light in a pile of arms and legs. The door closes with the booming finality of death, leaving silence and darkness in its echoing wake. Luna’s heart races, and she prepares herself. If new prisoners have arrived, their captors might not need the old ones.

She and Mister Ollivander and Griphook are now surplus to requirements.

Luna pets the old man, like a child, and feels sorry that this is how his life will end—without dignity, without honour. Knowing Madam Lestrange, without pity as well. The goblin will be dispatched, and he will go cursing and spitting his hatred for all of her race, vowing vengeance in his name that will never come.

Then Luna accepts her own impending death. Her only true sorrow is that she really isn’t going to die for anything. Her death will be senseless and pointless. She will never get to say goodbye to her Da and her friends. All she can do it bid herself farewell; that will have to be enough.

The two new replacements jerkily rise to their feet, and Luna meets the frightened, furious eyes of Ronald Weasley. Behind him, looking around with a mixture of fear and grim determination, is Harry Potter. His eyes meet hers, and in that split-second, she knows everything has changed.

A sudden, fierce courage fills her with resolve, like light once filled her with hope. Whatever happens now, Luna knows that she will _not_ die a senseless death.

In fact, she’s pretty sure none of them are going to die today.


End file.
